With an eye on the media, the Bezeq (TASE: BZEQ) national workers committee, headed by chairman Shlomo Kfir, has contacted potential bidders for the controlling interest in Bezeq. The workers committee presented what it described as Bezeq’s crisis, caused by CEO Amnon Dick.
In an unprecedented act, the Bezeq workers committee sent letters to Markstone Capital Partners Fund, IDB Holding Corp. (TASE: IDBH), and businessman Haim Saban, all of whom have expressed interest in acquiring a controlling interest in Bezeq.
The letters constitute a further escalation in the dispute between Bezeq’s workers committee and management, fanned by the workers committee’s political consultant, Motti Morel.
”After more than a year in the term of the current CEO, we are forced to turn to the chairman and members of the board of directors and to you, as a bidder to acquire the company, and inform you of the serious situation in the company,” the committee wrote. “The loss of the customers and investors’ trust by Bezeq CEO Amnon Dick jeopardizes the company’s privatization, and the company’s chances of receiving suitable proceeds for its assets.”
Kfir further alleged that attempts to conduct a dialogue with the CEO had proved unsuccessful. “Instead, he has chosen to conduct a campaign of personal slander against the workers’ representatives, thereby aggravating the damage to Bezeq,” Kfir stated.
Kfir also accused Dick of representing himself as the CEO of the Bezeq “group”, and thereby exceeding his authority, since he had only been appointed CEO of Bezeq. Kfir said that this misrepresentation “is causing objections on the part of managers, directors, and employees in the group’s other companies.”
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on August 9, 2004